Passage 6

In the eighteenth century, Japans feudal

overlords, from the shogun to the humblest
samurai, found themselves under financial
stress. In part, this stress can be attributed to
(5) the overlords failure to adjust to a rapidly expanding economy, but the stress was also due to
factors beyond the overlords control. Concentration of the samurai in castle-towns had acted
as a stimulus to trade. Commercial efficiency, in
(10) turn, had put temptations in the way of buyers.
Since most samurai had been reduced to idleness
by years of peace, encouraged to engage in
scholarship and martial exercises or to perform
administrative tasks that took little time, it is
(15) not surprising that their tastes and habits grew
expensive. Overlords income, despite the increase in rice production among their tenant
farmers, failed to keep pace with their expenses.
Although shortfalls in overlords income re(20) sulted almost as much from laxity among their
tax collectors (the nearly inevitable outcome of
hereditary officeholding) as from their higher
standards of living, a misfortune like a fire or
flood, bringing an increase in expenses or a drop
(25) in revenue, could put a domain in debt to the
city rice-brokers who handled its finances. Once
in debt, neither the individual samurai nor the
shogun himself found it easy to recover.
It was difficult for individual samurai over(30) lords to increase their income because the
amount of rice that farmers could be made to
pay in taxes was not unlimited, and since the income of Japans central government consisted in
part of taxes collected by the shogun from his
(35) huge domain, the government too was constrained. Therefore, the Tokugawa shoguns
began to look to other sources for revenue.
Cash profits from government-owned mines
were already on the decline because the most
(40) easily worked deposits of silver and gold had
been exhausted, although debasement of the
coinage had compensated for the loss. Opening
up new farmland was a possibility, but most of
what was suitable had already been exploited
(45) and further reclamation was technically unfeasible. Direct taxation of the samurai themselves
would be politically dangerous. This left the
shoguns only commerce as a potential source of
government income.

Most of the countrys wealth, or so it seemed,

was finding its way into the hands of city merchants. It appeared reasonable that they should
contribute part of that revenue to ease the
shoguns burden of financing the state. A means
(55) of obtaining such revenue was soon found by
levying forced loans, known as goyo-kin;
although these were not taxes in the strict sense,
since they were irregular in timing and arbitrary
in amount, they were high in yield. Unfortunately,
(60) they pushed up prices. Thus, regrettably, the
Tokugawa shoguns search for solvency for the
government made it increasingly difficult for
individual Japanese who lived on fixed stipends
to make ends meet.
(50)